The shortage of parking space has become a major problem in modern metropolitan areas. The high cost of real estate in such areas has made it impractical to dedicate large areas of land to parking lots. In order to provide the maximum parking space for the minimum dedicated real estate, multi-story parking garages have been developed. Such parking garages generally comprise a plurality of parking decks or levels interconnected by ramps such that an individual can drive his vehicle up the ramps to successively higher decks until he locates an available parking space.
While multi-story parking decks have provided more parking space for a given area, they have not always proven convenient to the parking public. It is often necessary to drive to the upper levels of the garage in order to locate an available parking space an, after having parked to walk or take long flights of stairs back to the ground level. In addition to requiring valuable time, parking in these multi-deck garages can be extremely frustrating. Further, operation of such garages require the presence of at least one attendant at all times to collect money, operate toll gates and generally maintain the garage.
Accordingly, a need has been felt for a parking garage that provides parking for large numbers of vehicles in a small space and that does not require an individual to spend time driving to upper levels of a deck and walking down therefrom. Further, an automated garage not requiring the presence of an attendant is highly desirable to reduce the cost of operating the garage.
One example of an attempt to satisfy this need is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,511,389 of the present applicant. While the device disclosed in this patent eliminates the need to drive to successively more elevated parking levels, it still requires the presence of an operator skilled in its use. Further, the mechanical mechanism of this device is complex and bulky with the mechanism itself occupying space that could otherwise be dedicated to automobiles. As a consequence, devices such as those illustrated in the `389 patent have not proven to be optimum solutions to the problems discussed above.
Other attempts are embodied in parking garages known in the industry as Pigeon Hole, Minute Park, Speed Park and Bowser System. Each of these systems utilize a traveling crane elevator developed by M. E. Mitchell to move vehicles to various levels of a storage garage. These garages have not proven to be successful because of the extended times required to retrieve a vehicle. Several such systems have been built and abandoned.
Thus, it is to the provision of a parking garage that overcomes the problems of prior art garages that the present invention is primarily directed.